A new art exhibition at the Glasshouse is exploring the mutability of history and the impermanence of places over time.
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Polish-born, Sydney-based artist Izabela Pluta's work explores how photographs can be layered in meaning and tell a story long after the subject can.
The exhibition, titled Reversal, is a photo-based installation that draws on Rose Macaulay's 1953 book, Pleasure of Ruins.
The book articulates a relationship between the disappearance of buildings and the limitations of words used to describe them said Izabela.
"I think the exhibition is quite poetic, evocative and beautiful in its own cryptic way," Izabela said.
"By covering the images in gold it is messing with people sense of them, disrupting them, but it also forces the audience to look more closely to see the ancient ruins."
Izabela has exhibited widely in Australia and in 2018 was shortlisted for the MAMA Foundation National Photographic Award.
In 2019 she is also presenting new work in exhibitions including The National 2019: new Australian art at the Art Gallery of NSW and Resurfaced Geographies at Verge Gallery, Sydney.
"Everything that exists is interrelated. The exhibition is connecting, concealing, and disrupting images with another image which is only connected by being in the same book," she said.
"There are 153 images in the exhibition which are all unique. The covering of the images is by the image at the other end of the book. For example the last image in the book printed onto the image on page one "
Izabela, who also participated in an Artist in Residency program in November 2018, said the space in which the exhibition is being shown is deliberate as is as much a part of the exhibition as the images themselves.
"Everything in the space is deliberate, when you first walk in you will see a set that almost looks unfinished and that is deliberate.
"Mr residency was a great chance to focus on my art but also by using what is around me and in Port Macquarie I could get a different look at what I am trying to create.
"I love that when you look at a photograph it can transport you elsewhere and my work really tries to explore that and question why."
